Columbia University took another step toward a 17-acre ex- pansion of its campus in Harlem with the Sept. 26 announcement of a deal reached with the borough of Manhattan, The New York Times reported. In the agreement, the university pledged to donate $20 million towards creating affordable housing in the area, to commit to the use of environmentally friendly building and design and to create a community resource center to educate residents about job opportunities and housing financed by the school -- among other considerations. Columbia, which already owns two thirds of the land, is currently working to acquire the remaining property from its owners. University President Lee Bollinger said that the university would rather avoid the use of eminent domain in this process -- a legal process by which Columbia could seize land -- but would not rule out its implementation. Some in the neighborhood, fearful that expansion will displace local shopkeepers and residents, have opposed the deal. Both the City Planning Commission and the City Council must approve the agreement before plans can progress.
The national media has consistently profiled David Swensen, Yale University's Chief Investment Officer, as an investment powerhouse. Now he is living up to that title as the university received a 28-percent return on its endowment, as reported by The New York Times. This brings Yale's average return to 17.8 percent for the last 10 years. Dartmouth previously reported a 24.3-percent return on its investment and a 14.2-percent annualized return over the last decade. "What Swensen taught everyone to do was not to get the preferred return on bonds because it was too low and to control risk by diversification and careful selection of managers, and he is very good at picking managers," Bruce C.N. Greenwald, professor of finance at Columbia University Business School, told The New York Times.
Many recent adopters of Apple's iPhone found their devices disabled last week following a software update by the Cuptertino, Calif., company. The update primarily disabled the devices of users who had "hacked" their iPhones to run on networks other than AT&T. Many in the online community pointed to the update as the latest example of the company attempting to limit the influence of third-party programmers and hackers, according to the Associated Press. Apple, which had sold one million iPhones by early September, responded by saying the company had warned users about the update.
